The Tech Report published an overview of Intel's new entry level boards and chips which were introduced to compete with AMD's Ryzen 3 2200G and Ryzen 5 2400G. Along with the look at the new silicon comes a review of a new Gigabyte board which is wee bit different from the one Morry reviewed. Even with the small stature of the H370N WiFi, Gigabyte still included a pair of M.2 ports, two HDMI ports of which one is HDMI 2.0, DP 1.2, four USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A and a single Type-C. If you are looking to build a fully functional and yet affordable SFF system you should check this out.

"Intel's H370, B360, and H310 chipsets promise to power the kinds of affordable boards that have been sorely missed alongside locked Coffee Lake CPUs. We explore what kinds of load-outs builders can expect from this new silicon and check out Gigabyte's H370N Wifi to see how motherboard makers might implement H370's fresh features."

Asus has launched a new Mini ITX motherboard using Intel’s new H370 chipset and LGA 1151 socket for 8th Generation Core Coffee Lake processors. The H370-I Gaming motherboard is part of Asus’ ROG (republic of gamers) Strix lineup and supports Aura Sync addressable RGB LEDs along with other enthusiast features like SupremeFX audio and dual Gigabit Ethernet.

The ROG Strix H370-I Gaming pairs the LGA 1151 socket with two DDR4 memory slots (up to 32GB 2666 MHz before overclocking), four SATA 6 Gbps ports, a single PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot, and two M.2 PCI-E (one also supports SATA mode) 2280 slots with one under the heatsink above the PCI-E x16 slot and one on the back of the motherboard. Power delivery is handled by the Digi+ VRM and fed by an eight pin CPU power connector (I'm not sure how the power phases are split.) Asus offers overcurrent and ESD protection as well as the various Q-DIMM, Q-LED, and Q-Slot convenience features along with a front panel connector breakout cable.

The motherboard Is fairly barren of chips as it uses the Intel H370 chipset for Wi-Fi and USB. There is a Realtek RTL8111H chipset and Intel I219-V chipset for Gigabit Ethernet as well as SupremeFX S1220A audio with dual op amps. Wireless is handled by the intel 9650 and features 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity. The board features “Fan Xpert 4” technology which amounts to three 4-pin fan headers (one geared towards AIO water pumps) and multiple temperature sensors across the board.

Rear I/O on the Strix H370-I Gaming includes:

1 x DisplayPort

1 x HDMI

2 x Gigabit Ethernet

2 x USB 3.1 Gen 2

1 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 (Type-C)

3 x USB 3.1 Gen 1

1 x Optical Audio Out

5 x Analog Audio Out

2 x Wi-Fi Antenna connectors

Surprisingly, it appears the Mini ITX motherboard is already available for purchase with a going price of around $140 USD. If you are looking for a motherboard for a SFF system using Coffee Lake (and love RGB), the H370-I Gaming may be worth a look.

Since the Coffee Lake-S desktop processor launch with the i7-8700K in October of last year, the processor lineup has remained a bit bare compared to previous generations.

While we are used to an Intel processor platform launch having several SKUs covering the entire spectrum of consumers, from Pentium all the way to up Core i7, Coffee Lake currently sits at just 6 different processor options.

Today, Intel is rounding out the rest of the Coffee Lake desktop lineup with the addition of more traditional desktop SKUs, as well as low-power "T-series" CPUs.

Filling out the i5-lineup, we have two more 6 core options without hyper-threaded in the i5-8600 and i5-8400. The Core i3-8300 provides a 100MHz boost to the existing quad-core i3-8100, while staying in the same 65W TDP.

The little-known T-Series are Intel's lower frequency desktop chips that are configured to run at just 35W while remaining desktop-level performance. Traditionally, these CPUs are used in OEM configurations, but enthusiasts looking for ultra-small form factor and quiet PCs have been known to use these CPUs in the past.

Overall, these CPU announcements are difficult to get too excited about, but help round out the 8th Generation lineup into more available price points, which is always good for consumers looking to build a PC.

Even better news for anyone looking to build an 8th Generation-based PC is the addition of new, lower cost chipsets. Previously, only expensive Z370-based boards were compatible with Coffee Lake processors.

Now, joining the Z370 chipset for consumers, we have the H370, and B360 chipsets. While sacrificing I/O options and overclocking availability, motherboards based on these chipsets should provide a much greater value for consumers looking to build a lower-end Coffee Lake system. The H370, Q370, and B360 chipsets also provide USB 3.1 Gen 2 connectivity directly from the chipset.

In addition, Intel has also added built-in 802.11ac support into all of these new chipsets, providing a solid wireless solution without any additonal peripherals.

No exact word on availability of these new processors or chipsets, but we expect them to start hitting the market very soon!

With both AMD and Intel scheduled to release new chips in a few weeks it looks like it will be a busy April for reviewers. Motherboard manufacturers are hoping the retail market will also be a busy as they have all seen slower sales this quarter than they achieved a year ago. Indeed total global motherboard shipments slipped 15% in 2017, a noticeable slowdown. Intel will be refreshing Coffee Lake and adding several new chipsets while AMD will be introducing Ryzen 2000 as well as two new chipsets.

From the looks of the names, which are listed at DigiTimes, the naming conventions for the two competing companies will remain annoyingly similar.

"Asustek Computer, ASRock, Gigabyte Technology and Micro-Star International (MSI) have all begun making deployments, hoping their motherboard shipments in the second quarter can at least remain at levels similar to those a year ago, according market watchers."

Thanks to a leaked Intel Launch Update document we now know that Intel is planning to launch a slew of new 300-series chipsets early next year. Reportedly vetted by Gamer's Nexus, the leaked roadmap mentions H310, H370, and B360 on the consumer side, Q370 and Q360 for the business market. There is also a tease of a Z390 chipset that is set to replace Z370 as the high-end motherboard platform of choice.

As if things were not already confusing enough in the _370 chipset space (with Intel's Z370 and AMD's X370), Intel plans to add a H370 chipset to the mix which should be a bit cheaper and have less overclocking, PCI-E slots, and M.2 ports. Intel has also had to tweak the name for its B series chipset to B360 as well so as to not confuse itself with AMD's B350 chipset offering. Finally, there will be a H310 chipset for budget options. These three consumer chipsets are slated for launch in Q1 2018.

For its business customers, Intel plans to launch Q370 and Q360 chipsets in Q2 2018.

Finally, Intel is rumored to launch a Z390 chipset sometime in the second half of next year (2H 2018). According to Gamer's Nexus, industry sources have indicated that Z370 is more of a "stop gap" solution that Intel used to quickly roll out its Coffee Lake processors. Z370 is intended to only support Coffee Lake and while engineering boards were able to support Kaby Lake-R and Coffee Lake CPUs, this functionality has been disabled in firmware. Z370 based motherboards reportedly have tweaked PCB trace optimizations and power delivery needed to support the new processors. Z390 meanwhile will be the successor to Z370 in 2018 and will offically support the entire range of consumer level Coffee Lake processors as well as rumored 8 core (16 thread) processors of undetermined architecture (maybe 14nm++ Coffee Lake but would be a rather big but not unheard of die at ~176mm^2 so rumors also speculate that these 8 core parts could be based on 10nm Ice Lake instead).

Beyond the existence of these chipsets, the ILU did not go into details on the features they would offer or things like price points for motherboards based on them, naturally. As usual you should take these types of leaks with a teaspoon of salt, but it is interesting that Intel may be stepping up their game in rolling out new products faster and moving more cores to the mainstream chips--finally!